Kimmy and the Stranger
by msgrits
Summary: This is my AU explanation of why Grissom goes beardless. Fluffy...


**A/N Thank to Cybro and Danese. Much love to my peeps. This is my AU explanation of why Grissom goes beardless. Fluffy...**

**I don't own any related to CSI or CBS. Gary is in my closet though.**

Kimmy Grissom was number of things. She was sweet, kind, cute, loving, and very smart. She was also a drama queen prone to histrionics that her parents had become adept at tuning out. Her father turned off the one hearing aid he wore in his left ear. Her mother usually started singing something by the Beatles. Kimmy adored the Beatles.

So it was not with much alarm that Sara Sidle-Grissom greeted her daughter after a relatively calm shift.

Red faced and agitated, she launched herself at her mother as she walked through the front door.

"There's a man in the kitchen," she whimpered into her mother's knees.

Sara smiled and tried to smooth unruly black curls as she kissed her daughter's lightly freckled nose hello. "Yes, there is a man in the kitchen. The one that makes your breakfast every morning. What's Daddy making? Hmm? And why don't you have your school clothes on."

She tried to lift the girl but Kimmy twisted away, stomped her feet and glowered at her mother. "Noooo! It's not Daddy. There's a strange man in the kitchen. Get you gun and shoot him. We gotta find Daddy. He probably stolt him."

Sara sighed. This child and her imagination. Kimmy could make adults and children alike buy into her elaborate fantasy world. More than one babysitter had called the police because Kimmy saw a "monster" in the backyard.

Kimmy was now standing behind her mother pushing her towards the kitchen and what Sara hoped were blueberry pancakes and Southwestern omelets and coffee - please God, let her husband have replenished the good coffee. The cooking smells boded well for actual hot food. Her husband wasn't running late this morning. Last night he'd been overly proud of himself because he'd ironed Kimmy's school clothes for the entire week. He'd been right. He was better suited for the stay home parent bit. Sara loved her daughter but the thought of not working made her want to throw up. Most days she didn't even feel guilty about it.

The color drained from her face as her husband turned to greet her. "Morning sunshine number one and sunshine number two. Get your pancakes while they're hot, hot, hot."

The words came from an unmustached, unbearded, perfectly baby faced, stay at home, part time professor, full time entomologist, mouth.

"What the - did you do?" Sara sputtered pointing a finger at his face.

Kimmy interjected herself between the two adults. "I tooold you Mommy. Shoot him. Get you gun out of the fire box and shoot him. Then we have to find Daddy."

Kimmy stuck out her tongue at the stranger for good measure.

Sara glanced at the girl and gave her a reassuring smile. "I might shoot him honey but not because he's a strange man but because he shaved off his beard without consulting his wife."

Gil looked from his daughter to his wife. "It's my face. I didn't know I had to consult," he tried jovially. He looked at their daughter. "What do you think Doodlebug? Like Daddy's new face?"

Kimmy narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms over her heaving chest. "You aren't my Daddy. My Daddy is old and you are young and my mommy has a gun and she's going to shoot you cause she loves my Daddy and me. You better run Mister." Thinking for a few seconds the girl turned to her mother. "He called me Doodlebug..." The girl, tall for her age, took a step forward and sniffed. "He got Daddy smells too..."

Not to be taken in by the impostor she rethought her doubt and repositioned herself next her mother.

"Grissom...I can't believe you shaved and didn't call me."

"I felt- I needed a change." He defended motioning them to sit.

Sara tugged Kimmy from behind her. Kimmy refused to sit in her normal seat instead she positioned herself in her mothers lap.

"We gonna eat his food?" Kimmy was aghast as Sara covered the top of her bunny pajamas with an unfolded paper napkin.

Sara sighed and spoke far more reasonably then she felt. "Honey this is your Daddy. He shaved of his beard. He looks like he did when Mommy met him."

"He cut off his face?" Kimmy wondered peering at the smiley face pancakes that had been set before her. Maybe the strange man wasn't so bad if he could make smiley face pancakes.

"Well the hair on his face is like the hair on your head, it grows. You know the picture of you when you were a baby?"

Kimmy reached for a cherry and nodded. "I didn't have no hair."

"Right and then as you got older it grew and you have lots of hair now. Well that's what Daddy was doing, he let it grow. And now he's cut it all off."

Kimmy looked up. "So you are Daddy?"

An affectionate nod followed from the older Grissom. "Yes dear."

"Oh." Kimmy shrugged and began to eat the other eye off of her pancakes.

"Why did you do this?" Sara gestured to the smooth, pale face. She had missed the dimple but still.

"I needed a change," he replied stiffly sitting down across from his wife and slicing into his own stack.

The pancake had only a whipped cream mouth now. The child motioned for her mother to obliterate the whipped cream mouth with syrup. "My new teacher Miss Eckles said Daddy looked old. I told her Daddy was old. He's the oldest. Can we have sketti for dinner? Morgan gotta a new dog."

Sara studied her husband. "Gil?"

"Besides the fact that she apparently called me old in front of half my daughter's class she also asked me if I was there to pick up my granddaughter. Right after that she said my daughter was so striking she could be a model."

Sara let out a breath and put her hand over he husbands. "Oh honey. You aren't nearly as old as Morgan's dad."

Grissom's raised an eyebrow harrumphed. "Gee hun, that makes me feel soo much better and considering that Morgan's mom is barely old enough to drink..."

Sara started to work on her own food maneuvering around four year old hyperactivity as she did so. "How long is it going to take you to grow it back?"

"Give it a chance. You might like the feel of it-everywhere."

Hearing her father's funny tone Kimmy rolled her eyes. She didn't have to look at her mother. She'd have a goofy grin. She always did when her daddy started talking low and making funny moves with his eyebrows.

Grownups were strange. At least they made good pancakes.


End file.
